Many of your indoor plants may be going through a period of winter dormancy if you’ve seen limited growth throughout the colder months. The full growth you know and love will return once the weather begins to warm up, therefore plants that go through this phase should be taken care of rather than thrown out.
You can compare the appearance of winter dormancy with times of stress by having one or more of these houseplants in your collection. This can help you determine whether a plant is too far gone versus when it is going through a normal cycle:
- Queen of marble pothos
- Asian evergreen
- Philodendron
- a. l. v.
- Viper plant
- fig fiddle leaf
- The delicious monstera
And this is only the start. Due to the natural course of things, most houseplants will go into some sort of winter dormancy, whether it be slow growth or leaf drop. You won’t have any trouble keeping your plant babies alive until the following growing season if you are careful about your regimen for caring for them in the winter.
Do houseplants hibernate during the winter?
In the winter, a lot of plants hibernate. If you cultivate outdoors, you may easily observe your perennial plants and deciduous trees dormanting over the winter by just looking out the window. They have all lost their leaves. Case resolved.
There are several misconceptions regarding houseplants’ winter dormancy, says Costa Farms’ horticulture Justin Hancock. He claims that contrary to popular belief, houseplants do not genuinely become dormant. They do, however, respond to changes in your home’s climate.
In the winter, your house is dryer. The decline in houseplant growth is caused by things such as furnaces, space heaters, and fireplaces that produce hot, dry air (which also means reduced humidity). Leaf shedding may also be influenced by dryer circumstances.
And everyone is aware that light has an impact on plant growth. Some indoor plants respond to reduced light by slowing down new development due to the combination of winter’s lower light levels and fewer days.
Hancock claims that instead of being dormant, your houseplants are merely adjusting to their new winter living conditions and are conserving energy. But he claims that simply making minor adjustments indoors, you can lessen the affects of cold. To make a hotter, dryer living area more comfortable, add additional humidity. Additionally, you can influence the lighting. He suggests using artificial lighting to supplement. Or, Hancock advises, “you might move plants closer to a window that was previously obstructed by a deciduous tree; you could discover that your houseplants grow a little more in the winter.
Oh, and feel free to repot your plants, Hancock advises. Repotting in the winter is good, according to him. Don’t overwater, though. Hancock warns parents of indoor plants to avoid mistaking a lack of development for a need for additional water. If they aren’t developing as quickly, you need to be more careful about not overwatering them, he advises. The main cause of indoor plants dying is over watering.
Do houseplants go into hibernation?
Almost all indoor plants enter a dormant state throughout the winter, which reduces their water requirements. They could become infected or develop rot if you continue to water them at summer rates. Therefore, watering indoor plants in the winter should start with a little mist. When in doubt, feel the soil about an inch below the surface to discover if it’s damp. Citrus species are an exception to this rule because they typically thrive on soil with higher moisture levels.
What kinds of plants hibernate?
Due to the harsh weather and reduced daylight hours of winter, the majority of perennial plants enter a condition of dormancy, or winter rest. These latent, rather than dead, plants lose their stems and leaves when they remain dormant. When spring finally arrives, they’ll start to grow again from their roots.
Like individuals, plants come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Different plants enjoy different types of growing environments, and some are transported in their dormant stage in the spring while others will awaken from their winter hibernation. Before shipping, we carefully examine dormant plants to make sure their roots and crowns are strong and prepared to sprout.
Please take care when handling dormant plants.
When the plants arrive, you probably won’t notice any top growth.
That is typical and not cause for alarm.
The most accurate approach to determine whether a plant is dormant is to examine the root system. As demonstrated here with a Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) plant, search for thin, sturdy roots. To ensure that these plants flourish in your garden, adhere to the guidelines listed below.
How can you recognize a dormant plant?
There are fortunately a few techniques to tell whether a plant is dormant or dead. You can apply a test known as the snap-scratch test to trees and bushes. It’s as easy as it sounds to take this test. Simply attempt to break a branch from the tree or bush. The branch is dead if it snaps easily and has a gray or brown inside. The branch is still alive if it is malleable, resists breaking off readily, or displays fleshy green and/or white interiors.
If the branch doesn’t break at all, you can use a knife or your fingernail to remove a little portion of the bark and examine the fleshy green or white hue that lies beneath. When conducting this test, cut out the dead branches because it is conceivable for certain branches on trees and shrubs to die over the winter while other branches on the plant remain alive.
To determine whether perennials or some shrubs are dormant or dead, more intrusive investigations may be necessary. Digging up the plants and looking at the roots is the best technique to check these plants. Replant the plant and give it extra time if the roots appear to be fleshy and healthy. Discard the plant if the roots are dry and brittle, mushy, or otherwise clearly dead.
Each and every thing has its time. Just because we are prepared to begin our gardening season does not imply that our plants are. Sometimes, all we need to do is wait it out and let nature take its course.
Which month enters dormancy for houseplants?
There are challenges to overcome if you want to maintain the lovely houseplants that make up your indoor garden once you have assembled them. For your plants to thrive, you must continue to give the optimum soil, water, sunlight, temperature, and ventilation. It’s not too difficult to overcome these difficulties.
However, even those indoor gardeners who excel in these areas frequently struggle with dormancy.
If at all possible, strive to provide plants that have had damage, gone dormant, or are otherwise not at a lovely stage following harsh pruning good care.
Apartment residents and certain gardeners with limited space can be forced to toss out withering plants, donate them to sympathetic friends who also cultivate, or make arrangements for the plants to rest in a friend’s basement.
Many gardeners who can cope with the stress of repotting, fertilizing, trimming, and troubleshooting plants are ignorant of the changes that occur throughout a plant’s life cycle. Outdoor plants, shrubs, and trees are in a state of dormancy, and the winter’s “rest” is generally accepted.
A houseplant’s dormancy is much more subtle. Usually, growth is generally slowed down. You might not be aware that the dormant plant requires a different approach.
Outdoor plants abruptly enter dormancy when the seasons or environmental factors change. The loss of leaves on deciduous trees that are native to the North is an illustration of this. Huse plants typically originate from warmer areas, when a drop in rainfall or a rise in temperature triggers dormancy.
Houseplants’ dormancy is little or nonexistent since they are not subjected to these environmental changes. You must learn to spot the dormant plant symptoms and even induce dormancy in overworked plants.
The days are short in the months of December, January, and February. This presents a great opportunity to cut back on the water and fertilizer your plants have been using. Too much water or fertilizer can harm resting plants because they do not require as much of either.
Every plant has its own unique sense of timing. Reduce the amount of water and fertilizer applied to the plant if it seems to enter dormancy at any other time of year outside the winter. A plant just cannot sustain its optimal condition forever. Most plants can persist for years if given a rest.
Maybe you’ve ever questioned why your Christmas cactus didn’t bloom at Christmas or why it did at Easter. Some plants, like the Christmas cactus, are extremely sensitive to changes in the lengths of day and night. There are plants that thrive in a variety of day lengths, including those with long and short days.
Many plants’ flowering times are influenced by temperature as well. Fortunately, the majority of houseplants belong to the group that can grow or flourish in a wide range of temperatures and day lengths.
When we opted to leave the hall light on all night one year, my Christmas cactus was unable to bloom. In the hallway, close to a west window, was the cactus. We had failed to supply the essential darkness throughout the crucial moment because we were a short-day blooming.
Domestic plants resemble people. They are eager for a summer vacation after a long winter of labor. With their blossoms or exquisite foliage, they have enlivened our gloomy winter. They too need to be refreshed or get some rest in order to face the winter with renewed strength.
Many indoor plants can survive the hot months outside. African violets and other plants with delicate foliage should only be grown indoors. Houseplants that are brought outside for the summer should be placed in environments that are comparable to those found inside.
Among the plants that gain a lot from a summer garden vacation are geraniums, shrimp plant, and oxalls. For optimal dormancy, various plants, including amaryllis, fuchsia, gloxinia, caladium, Christmas cactus, other cacti, Easter lily, and other lilies, need to be handled carefully.
The plant needs to rest once the amaryllis blossoms have faded. Keep all of the leaves on the tree since they provide food for the next year’s bloom. During the summer, place the pot outside and fertilize every two weeks. Bring the pot indoors in the fall and reduce the water level until the leaves are dry and yellow.
To prevent the bulb from shriveling, store the pot in the basement and water it once a month. In December, replace the top third of the soil and start the cycle by giving it regular waterings and exposure to sunlight.
Similar to gloxinia, except after the blooms have faded, they are planted indoors rather than outdoors to rest. During the six to ten week dormant stage, water them twice or three times in a cool basement. Repot the plant after that, give it more water, and place it in the sun.
By keeping the soil a little drier and the wintertime temperature at around 50 degrees Fahrenheit, fuchsias can be forced to rest.
Cut down a portion of the top growth in October and November. If you want the fuchsia to grow bigger, repotte it into a pot that is one size bigger. Repot it into the same pot if necessary.
Start providing enough watering, daily leaf misting, and weekly plant feeding in January.
How should indoor plants be cared for during the winter?
Winter brings less light, and less light often equals less water, according to Erin Marino of The Sill. According to Marino, a plant will eventually get more thirsty the more sunlight it receives. Plants consume less water in the winter when there is less sunlight than in the spring and summer when they are actively growing. A plant that needed watering once a week throughout the summer may now prefer to go two weeks without it, according to Marino.
When the season is over, what should you do with your potted plants?
Ten things to do:
- 1.) Clean but don’t “sanitize.
- 2. Remove the dead materials.
- 3. Cut off the wilted perennial flowers.
- 4.) “Put compost on top of the gardens.
- 5. One final grass cutting.
- 6.) Apply lawn fertilizer.
- 7.) Guard the delicate material.
- 8. Examine the mulch.
What plants from the outside can you bring indoors for the winter?
For the winter, Larson advises taking all tropical plants inside. Additionally, she has hibiscus. Pelargonium (better known as geraniums).
Cut back on the frequency of watering.
The soil won’t be drying out as quickly unless you maintain a sauna-like temperature inside your house. Therefore, the roots won’t need as much water at this time.
I water my houseplants usually every seven days because I reside in Tucson, which is hot and dry for five months out of the year. I reduce the frequency to once every 1021 days throughout the winter.
The sort of plants you have, the size and composition of the pots, the humidity level, and how warm or chilly your home are all factors that will affect how frequently you water yours.
Decrease the amount of water.
I water my indoor plants about 25% less throughout the winter. In the summer, I use a larger watering can, and in the winter, I use a smaller one. This stops me from suffocating the plants.
This keeps the soil from becoming too wet near the bottom of the pot, where the majority of the roots are, where I have quite a few large floor plants with a lot of soil mass.
Don’t let too much water collect in the saucer.
You don’t need to completely submerge the grow pot’s bottom in water; a small amount of trickling out onto the saucer is acceptable. Doing so will eventually cause the roots to decay.
It’s good if it rests on pebble or rock layers; more on that under “Humidity.”
How can I put my houseplants into dormancy?
Normally, a plant will become dormant on its own without any assistance from you. While most indoor plants will do this naturally, some may need some encouragement. The majority of plants are able to recognize the shorter days in the late summer or early fall. Soon after, as lower temperatures approach, plant growth will start to slow as they go into hibernation. To encourage dormancy in houseplants, it may be helpful to relocate them to a room that is darker and cooler in the house.
When a plant goes dormant, the growth of the foliage may be restricted or even cease, but the roots will still expand and prosper. Because of this, fall is frequently a good and preferred period for transplanting.
Outdoor plants that are in the ground won’t require assistance, but outdoor potted plants might, depending on the type of plant and the climate. The majority of potted plants may be brought inside, and for hardier varieties, an unheated garage will do for the winter. A fully dormant plant (one that has lost all of its leaves) can also receive monthly watering throughout the winter hibernation, but no more.